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Saturday, December 31, 2016

You are quite right; I am a liberal. In fact, your favorite President-elect Donald Trump is also a liberal ("New York Liberal", as per Ted Cruz); although I am not yet a fan of him.

But as far as gun control, the American liberals are quite far from what needs to be done; and the conservatives are in the gutter. So, I do not expect the right thing (repeal of the 2nd amendment) done anytime soon.

I am certainly not like people who are unwilling to profile population groups from amongst whom a disproportionate number of criminals come out. That might make me less liberal by some people's thoughts. But I find most of your arguments too flawed, Dr. Roy.

JRoy: "1) you need to make the criminal occupations less safe in the society to reduce the occurrence, which can be done simply by passing conceal carry law. Good part of this law is – you don't need to arm yourself to be protected. The anticipation of conceal carry possibility will protect you."

SBain: Flawed! A potential victim could carry or appear to carry a gun; but he is not as likely to have his gun fully ready to fire as the criminal is with his gun. The concealed weapon can only marginally affect the behavior of a real criminal. It is not worth the risk of mass shootings that are carried out by mentally sick people.

JRoy: "2) criminals do not follow any law, so, gun control law will not disarm criminals; it will only disarm good people"

SBain: Flawed! When too many guns are too easily available, criminals and mentally sick people would have easier access to guns. If guns are rare, they would be less likely to fall in the wrong hands as well. And, of course, it has to be the duty of the state to stop crimes of all kinds, including illegal possession of guns.

JRoy: "3) a gun violence stops with the anticipation of good guys may be coming with guns.?"

SBain: Seriously flawed! Gun violence might drop marginally, it would not stop. See my comments on your first point above.

JRoy: " ..... Drugs are controlled everywhere in the world; why do we still see drug epidemics all over the world?"

SBain: Flawed comparison! Drugs should not be controlled as much as it is done in the USA. If a drug edict wants to kill himself slowly without hurting others, I certainly would not care about it as much I do about protecting absolutely innocent lovely little children from gun violence at their school.

JRoy: "Most of those casualties you cited could have been stopped or reduced had criminals anticipated the presence of guns among their victims."

SBain: Stopped? Absolutely not. Reduced? May be, may be not. In the case of Orlando, the criminal would have still used his guns. In a place like that, gun possession by the crowd might have caused a lot of friendly fire casualties while disabling the criminal sooner.

In any case, when a country is incapable of protecting its lovely little children at their elementary schools, there is a serious leadership deficiency, no matter how much emotion the leaders show for their deaths in the hands of mass shooters. Instead of making the schools gun-tottering jungles, I would advocate controlling guns in the country, and making sure that guns do not fall in irresponsible, mentally sick and criminal hands.

Sowell: "If concealed guns become widespread, then a mugger or a carjacker has no way of knowing who has one and who does not. It makes being a mugger or a carjacker a less-safe occupation."

He made bunch of sound arguments for gun ownership, all of which are fruitless to gun control ideologues.

The key points are:

1) you need to make the criminal occupations less safe in the society to reduce the occurrence, which can be done simply by passing conceal carry law. Good part of this law is – you don't need to arm yourself to be protected. The anticipation of conceal carry possibility will protect you;

2) criminals do not follow any law, so, gun control law will not disarm criminals; it will only disarm good people;

3) a gun violence stops with the anticipation of good guys may be coming with guns.

Liberals argue, gun control will reduce access to gun for criminals, but they miss the point that controlled substances do not reduce criminal use of those substances; it only increases fascination for illegal use by criminals. Drugs are controlled everywhere in the world; why do we still see drug epidemics all over the world?

In any case, it will be fruitless to initiate a dialogue about conceal carry with liberal ideologues, who believe in gun control as one of the commandments of liberalism.

Most of those casualties you cited could have been stopped or reduced had criminals anticipated the presence of guns among their victims.

There is a big difference between military powers of nations and guns in the hands of individual citizens. Mr. Sowell talked about mass shooters being 'irrational' and 'senseless'. Irrational and senseless they are, but they certainly have particular targets; they do not shoot just anybody. For example, the college student who shoots other students and professors is likely to be too frustrated with his performance in college and shows his grievances and weakness in the college where he studied. For another example, the Islamic moron who commits a mass shooting is likely to have been excessively brainwashed to kill as many non-Muslims as he could, and he finds a soft target where there is a gathering of a lot of such people.

It is utterly foolish to think that a citizen can live a normal life while being ready to fire his gun all the time. The criminal who raids a regular home has his finger on the trigger, and the owner of the home has his gun in the drawer of the corner table near his bed where he is sleeping - who is likely to be able to kill the other? It is not rocket science, Dr. Roy!

With too many guns everywhere, criminals and mentally sick people can have easy access to guns and be able to kill innocent people. It is a colossal shame for the USA when a mentally sick person can kill 20 children in an elementary school or 32 students and professors in a major university or 49 people in a nightclub. I feel pity for the President and his sorry nation when he expresses his impotent sympathy for such victims.

Sometimes someone inadvertently performs a public service by bringing an unbelievably stupid and dangerous idea to the surface, where it can be exposed for what it is.

The New York Times can be credited, if that is the word, with performing this public service in a recent editorial against proposals to allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed guns. It refers to what it calls the National Rifle Association's ''fantasy that citizens can stand up to gunmen by shooting it out.''

Nobody has suggested any such thing. Data collected over many years, but almost never seeing the light of day in the New York Times or the rest of the mainstream media, show many thousands of examples of people defending themselves with a gun each year, without having to pull the trigger.

If someone comes at you with a knife and you pull out a gun, chances are they will stop. The only time I ever pointed a gun at a human being, it was when someone was sneaking up toward me from behind a shed in the middle of the night. I never fired a shot. I just pointed the gun at him and told him to stop. He stopped.

Actually having to shoot someone is the exception, not the rule. Yet The New York Times conjures up a vision of something like the gunfight at the OK Corral.

Concealed guns protect not only those who carry them but also those who do not. If concealed guns become widespread, then a mugger or a carjacker has no way of knowing who has one and who does not. It makes being a mugger or a carjacker a less-safe occupation. Gun control laws are in effect occupational safety laws — OSHA for burglars, muggers, carjackers and others.

The fatal fallacy of gun control laws in general is the assumption that such laws actually control guns. Criminals who disobey other laws are not likely to be stopped by gun control laws. What such laws actually do is increase the number of disarmed and defenseless victims.

Mass shootings are often used as examples of a need for gun control. But what puts a stop to mass shootings? Usually the arrival on the scene of somebody else with a gun.

Mass shooters are often portrayed as ''irrational'' people engaged in ''senseless'' acts. But mass shooters are usually rational enough to attack schools, churches and other places where there is far less likelihood of someone being on the scene who is armed.

Seldom do we hear about these ''irrational'' shooters engaging in ''senseless'' attacks on meetings of the National Rifle Association or a local gun show or a National Guard armory.

The fallacy of believing that the way to reduce shootings is to disarm peaceful people extends from domestic gun control laws to international disarmament agreements. If disarmament agreements reduced the dangers of war, there would never have been a World War II.

The decades leading up to that war were filled with international disarmament agreements. As with domestic gun control laws, the agreements were followed by peaceful countries and ignored by belligerent countries that built up huge war machines, such as in Nazi Germany and imperial Japan.

The net result was that the belligerent countries had every incentive to start wars, and that they inflicted devastating losses on the peaceful countries that had drastically curtailed their own military forces.

Eventually the Western democracies got their act together and turned things around, after they belatedly beefed up their military forces. But thousands of lives were lost needlessly before that happened. World War II was in its third year before Western forces won a single battle.

Undaunted by history, the same kind of thinking that had cheered international disarmament treaties in the 1920s and 1930s once again cheered Soviet-American disarmament agreements during the Cold War.

Conversely, there was hysteria when President Ronald Reagan began building up American military forces in the 1980s. Cries were heard that he was leading us toward nuclear war. In reality, he led us toward an end of the Cold War, without a shot being fired at the Soviet Union.

But who reads history these days, or checks facts before leading the charge to keep law-abiding people disarmed?

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

__._,_.___

Posted by: Sukhamaya Bain <subain1@yahoo.com>

**************************************************** Mukto Mona plans for a Grand Darwin Day Celebration: Call For Articles:

I am certainly not like people who are unwilling to profile population groups from amongst whom a disproportionate number of criminals come out. That might make me less liberal by some people's thoughts. But I find most of your arguments too flawed, Dr. Roy.

JRoy: "1) you need to make the criminal occupations less safe in the society to reduce the occurrence, which can be done simply by passing conceal carry law. Good part of this law is – you don't need to arm yourself to be protected. The anticipation of conceal carry possibility will protect you."

SBain: Flawed! A potential victim could carry or appear to carry a gun; but he is not as likely to have his gun fully ready to fire as the criminal is with his gun. The concealed weapon can only marginally affect the behavior of a real criminal. It is not worth the risk of mass shootings that are carried out by mentally sick people.

JRoy: "2) criminals do not follow any law, so, gun control law will not disarm criminals; it will only disarm good people"

SBain: Flawed! When too many guns are too easily available, criminals and mentally sick people would have easier access to guns. If guns are rare, they would be less likely to fall in the wrong hands as well. And, of course, it has to be the duty of the state to stop crimes of all kinds, including illegal possession of guns.

JRoy: "3) a gun violence stops with the anticipation of good guys may be coming with guns.?"

SBain: Seriously flawed! Gun violence might drop marginally, it would not stop. See my comments on your first point above.

JRoy: " ..... Drugs are controlled everywhere in the world; why do we still see drug epidemics all over the world?"

SBain: Flawed comparison! Drugs should not be controlled as much as it is done in the USA. If a drug edict wants to kill himself slowly without hurting others, I certainly would not care about it as much I do about protecting absolutely innocent lovely little children from gun violence at their school.

JRoy: "Most of those casualties you cited could have been stopped or reduced had criminals anticipated the presence of guns among their victims."

SBain: Stopped? Absolutely not. Reduced? May be, may be not. In the case of Orlando, the criminal would have still used his guns. In a place like that, gun possession by the crowd might have caused a lot of friendly fire casualties while disabling the criminal sooner.

In any case, when a country is incapable of protecting its lovely little children at their elementary schools, there is a serious leadership deficiency, no matter how much emotion the leaders show for their deaths in the hands of mass shooters. Instead of making the schools gun-tottering jungles, I would advocate controlling guns in the country, and making sure that guns do not fall in irresponsible, mentally sick and criminal hands.

Sowell: "If concealed guns become widespread, then a mugger or a carjacker has no way of knowing who has one and who does not. It makes being a mugger or a carjacker a less-safe occupation."

He made bunch of sound arguments for gun ownership, all of which are fruitless to gun control ideologues.

The key points are:

1) you need to make the criminal occupations less safe in the society to reduce the occurrence, which can be done simply by passing conceal carry law. Good part of this law is – you don't need to arm yourself to be protected. The anticipation of conceal carry possibility will protect you;

2) criminals do not follow any law, so, gun control law will not disarm criminals; it will only disarm good people;

3) a gun violence stops with the anticipation of good guys may be coming with guns.

Liberals argue, gun control will reduce access to gun for criminals, but they miss the point that controlled substances do not reduce criminal use of those substances; it only increases fascination for illegal use by criminals. Drugs are controlled everywhere in the world; why do we still see drug epidemics all over the world?

In any case, it will be fruitless to initiate a dialogue about conceal carry with liberal ideologues, who believe in gun control as one of the commandments of liberalism.

Most of those casualties you cited could have been stopped or reduced had criminals anticipated the presence of guns among their victims.

There is a big difference between military powers of nations and guns in the hands of individual citizens. Mr. Sowell talked about mass shooters being 'irrational' and 'senseless'. Irrational and senseless they are, but they certainly have particular targets; they do not shoot just anybody. For example, the college student who shoots other students and professors is likely to be too frustrated with his performance in college and shows his grievances and weakness in the college where he studied. For another example, the Islamic moron who commits a mass shooting is likely to have been excessively brainwashed to kill as many non-Muslims as he could, and he finds a soft target where there is a gathering of a lot of such people.

It is utterly foolish to think that a citizen can live a normal life while being ready to fire his gun all the time. The criminal who raids a regular home has his finger on the trigger, and the owner of the home has his gun in the drawer of the corner table near his bed where he is sleeping - who is likely to be able to kill the other? It is not rocket science, Dr. Roy!

With too many guns everywhere, criminals and mentally sick people can have easy access to guns and be able to kill innocent people. It is a colossal shame for the USA when a mentally sick person can kill 20 children in an elementary school or 32 students and professors in a major university or 49 people in a nightclub. I feel pity for the President and his sorry nation when he expresses his impotent sympathy for such victims.

Sometimes someone inadvertently performs a public service by bringing an unbelievably stupid and dangerous idea to the surface, where it can be exposed for what it is.

The New York Times can be credited, if that is the word, with performing this public service in a recent editorial against proposals to allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed guns. It refers to what it calls the National Rifle Association's ''fantasy that citizens can stand up to gunmen by shooting it out.''

Nobody has suggested any such thing. Data collected over many years, but almost never seeing the light of day in the New York Times or the rest of the mainstream media, show many thousands of examples of people defending themselves with a gun each year, without having to pull the trigger.

If someone comes at you with a knife and you pull out a gun, chances are they will stop. The only time I ever pointed a gun at a human being, it was when someone was sneaking up toward me from behind a shed in the middle of the night. I never fired a shot. I just pointed the gun at him and told him to stop. He stopped.

Actually having to shoot someone is the exception, not the rule. Yet The New York Times conjures up a vision of something like the gunfight at the OK Corral.

Concealed guns protect not only those who carry them but also those who do not. If concealed guns become widespread, then a mugger or a carjacker has no way of knowing who has one and who does not. It makes being a mugger or a carjacker a less-safe occupation. Gun control laws are in effect occupational safety laws — OSHA for burglars, muggers, carjackers and others.

The fatal fallacy of gun control laws in general is the assumption that such laws actually control guns. Criminals who disobey other laws are not likely to be stopped by gun control laws. What such laws actually do is increase the number of disarmed and defenseless victims.

Mass shootings are often used as examples of a need for gun control. But what puts a stop to mass shootings? Usually the arrival on the scene of somebody else with a gun.

Mass shooters are often portrayed as ''irrational'' people engaged in ''senseless'' acts. But mass shooters are usually rational enough to attack schools, churches and other places where there is far less likelihood of someone being on the scene who is armed.

Seldom do we hear about these ''irrational'' shooters engaging in ''senseless'' attacks on meetings of the National Rifle Association or a local gun show or a National Guard armory.

The fallacy of believing that the way to reduce shootings is to disarm peaceful people extends from domestic gun control laws to international disarmament agreements. If disarmament agreements reduced the dangers of war, there would never have been a World War II.

The decades leading up to that war were filled with international disarmament agreements. As with domestic gun control laws, the agreements were followed by peaceful countries and ignored by belligerent countries that built up huge war machines, such as in Nazi Germany and imperial Japan.

The net result was that the belligerent countries had every incentive to start wars, and that they inflicted devastating losses on the peaceful countries that had drastically curtailed their own military forces.

Eventually the Western democracies got their act together and turned things around, after they belatedly beefed up their military forces. But thousands of lives were lost needlessly before that happened. World War II was in its third year before Western forces won a single battle.

Undaunted by history, the same kind of thinking that had cheered international disarmament treaties in the 1920s and 1930s once again cheered Soviet-American disarmament agreements during the Cold War.

Conversely, there was hysteria when President Ronald Reagan began building up American military forces in the 1980s. Cries were heard that he was leading us toward nuclear war. In reality, he led us toward an end of the Cold War, without a shot being fired at the Soviet Union.

But who reads history these days, or checks facts before leading the charge to keep law-abiding people disarmed?

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

__._,_.___

Posted by: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>

**************************************************** Mukto Mona plans for a Grand Darwin Day Celebration: Call For Articles:

I am certainly not like people who are unwilling to profile population groups from amongst whom a disproportionate number of criminals come out. That might make me less liberal by some people's thoughts. But I find most of your arguments too flawed, Dr. Roy.

JRoy: "1) you need to make the criminal occupations less safe in the society to reduce the occurrence, which can be done simply by passing conceal carry law. Good part of this law is – you don't need to arm yourself to be protected. The anticipation of conceal carry possibility will protect you."

SBain: Flawed! A potential victim could carry or appear to carry a gun; but he is not as likely to have his gun fully ready to fire as the criminal is with his gun. The concealed weapon can only marginally affect the behavior of a real criminal. It is not worth the risk of mass shootings that are carried out by mentally sick people.

JRoy: "2) criminals do not follow any law, so, gun control law will not disarm criminals; it will only disarm good people"

SBain: Flawed! When too many guns are too easily available, criminals and mentally sick people would have easier access to guns. If guns are rare, they would be less likely to fall in the wrong hands as well. And, of course, it has to be the duty of the state to stop crimes of all kinds, including illegal possession of guns.

JRoy: "3) a gun violence stops with the anticipation of good guys may be coming with guns.?"

SBain: Seriously flawed! Gun violence might drop marginally, it would not stop. See my comments on your first point above.

JRoy: " ..... Drugs are controlled everywhere in the world; why do we still see drug epidemics all over the world?"

SBain: Flawed comparison! Drugs should not be controlled as much as it is done in the USA. If a drug edict wants to kill himself slowly without hurting others, I certainly would not care about it as much I do about protecting absolutely innocent lovely little children from gun violence at their school.

JRoy: "Most of those casualties you cited could have been stopped or reduced had criminals anticipated the presence of guns among their victims."

SBain: Stopped? Absolutely not. Reduced? May be, may be not. In the case of Orlando, the criminal would have still used his guns. In a place like that, gun possession by the crowd might have caused a lot of friendly fire casualties while disabling the criminal sooner.

In any case, when a country is incapable of protecting its lovely little children at their elementary schools, there is a serious leadership deficiency, no matter how much emotion the leaders show for their deaths in the hands of mass shooters. Instead of making the schools gun-tottering jungles, I would advocate controlling guns in the country, and making sure that guns do not fall in irresponsible, mentally sick and criminal hands.

Sowell: "If concealed guns become widespread, then a mugger or a carjacker has no way of knowing who has one and who does not. It makes being a mugger or a carjacker a less-safe occupation."

He made bunch of sound arguments for gun ownership, all of which are fruitless to gun control ideologues.

The key points are:

1) you need to make the criminal occupations less safe in the society to reduce the occurrence, which can be done simply by passing conceal carry law. Good part of this law is – you don't need to arm yourself to be protected. The anticipation of conceal carry possibility will protect you;

2) criminals do not follow any law, so, gun control law will not disarm criminals; it will only disarm good people;

3) a gun violence stops with the anticipation of good guys may be coming with guns.

Liberals argue, gun control will reduce access to gun for criminals, but they miss the point that controlled substances do not reduce criminal use of those substances; it only increases fascination for illegal use by criminals. Drugs are controlled everywhere in the world; why do we still see drug epidemics all over the world?

In any case, it will be fruitless to initiate a dialogue about conceal carry with liberal ideologues, who believe in gun control as one of the commandments of liberalism.

Most of those casualties you cited could have been stopped or reduced had criminals anticipated the presence of guns among their victims.

There is a big difference between military powers of nations and guns in the hands of individual citizens. Mr. Sowell talked about mass shooters being 'irrational' and 'senseless'. Irrational and senseless they are, but they certainly have particular targets; they do not shoot just anybody. For example, the college student who shoots other students and professors is likely to be too frustrated with his performance in college and shows his grievances and weakness in the college where he studied. For another example, the Islamic moron who commits a mass shooting is likely to have been excessively brainwashed to kill as many non-Muslims as he could, and he finds a soft target where there is a gathering of a lot of such people.

It is utterly foolish to think that a citizen can live a normal life while being ready to fire his gun all the time. The criminal who raids a regular home has his finger on the trigger, and the owner of the home has his gun in the drawer of the corner table near his bed where he is sleeping - who is likely to be able to kill the other? It is not rocket science, Dr. Roy!

With too many guns everywhere, criminals and mentally sick people can have easy access to guns and be able to kill innocent people. It is a colossal shame for the USA when a mentally sick person can kill 20 children in an elementary school or 32 students and professors in a major university or 49 people in a nightclub. I feel pity for the President and his sorry nation when he expresses his impotent sympathy for such victims.

Sometimes someone inadvertently performs a public service by bringing an unbelievably stupid and dangerous idea to the surface, where it can be exposed for what it is.

The New York Times can be credited, if that is the word, with performing this public service in a recent editorial against proposals to allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed guns. It refers to what it calls the National Rifle Association's ''fantasy that citizens can stand up to gunmen by shooting it out.''

Nobody has suggested any such thing. Data collected over many years, but almost never seeing the light of day in the New York Times or the rest of the mainstream media, show many thousands of examples of people defending themselves with a gun each year, without having to pull the trigger.

If someone comes at you with a knife and you pull out a gun, chances are they will stop. The only time I ever pointed a gun at a human being, it was when someone was sneaking up toward me from behind a shed in the middle of the night. I never fired a shot. I just pointed the gun at him and told him to stop. He stopped.

Actually having to shoot someone is the exception, not the rule. Yet The New York Times conjures up a vision of something like the gunfight at the OK Corral.

Concealed guns protect not only those who carry them but also those who do not. If concealed guns become widespread, then a mugger or a carjacker has no way of knowing who has one and who does not. It makes being a mugger or a carjacker a less-safe occupation. Gun control laws are in effect occupational safety laws — OSHA for burglars, muggers, carjackers and others.

The fatal fallacy of gun control laws in general is the assumption that such laws actually control guns. Criminals who disobey other laws are not likely to be stopped by gun control laws. What such laws actually do is increase the number of disarmed and defenseless victims.

Mass shootings are often used as examples of a need for gun control. But what puts a stop to mass shootings? Usually the arrival on the scene of somebody else with a gun.

Mass shooters are often portrayed as ''irrational'' people engaged in ''senseless'' acts. But mass shooters are usually rational enough to attack schools, churches and other places where there is far less likelihood of someone being on the scene who is armed.

Seldom do we hear about these ''irrational'' shooters engaging in ''senseless'' attacks on meetings of the National Rifle Association or a local gun show or a National Guard armory.

The fallacy of believing that the way to reduce shootings is to disarm peaceful people extends from domestic gun control laws to international disarmament agreements. If disarmament agreements reduced the dangers of war, there would never have been a World War II.

The decades leading up to that war were filled with international disarmament agreements. As with domestic gun control laws, the agreements were followed by peaceful countries and ignored by belligerent countries that built up huge war machines, such as in Nazi Germany and imperial Japan.

The net result was that the belligerent countries had every incentive to start wars, and that they inflicted devastating losses on the peaceful countries that had drastically curtailed their own military forces.

Eventually the Western democracies got their act together and turned things around, after they belatedly beefed up their military forces. But thousands of lives were lost needlessly before that happened. World War II was in its third year before Western forces won a single battle.

Undaunted by history, the same kind of thinking that had cheered international disarmament treaties in the 1920s and 1930s once again cheered Soviet-American disarmament agreements during the Cold War.

Conversely, there was hysteria when President Ronald Reagan began building up American military forces in the 1980s. Cries were heard that he was leading us toward nuclear war. In reality, he led us toward an end of the Cold War, without a shot being fired at the Soviet Union.

But who reads history these days, or checks facts before leading the charge to keep law-abiding people disarmed?

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

__._,_.___

Posted by: Sukhamaya Bain <subain1@yahoo.com>

**************************************************** Mukto Mona plans for a Grand Darwin Day Celebration: Call For Articles: